Jackson County School System Engagement Plan

JACKSON COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM

2025-26 Parent and Family Engagement Plan

Revised 6/10/2025 Revised 6/10/2025

Inside “At the end of the day the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents.”

-Jane D. Hull

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What is Family Engagement?

About the Parent and Family Engagement Plan

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Parent Consultation Building Capacity

Parent and Teacher Partnerships Parent and Family Engagement Evaluation

What is Family Engagement?

Family Engagement means the participation of parents and family members in regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning and other school activities, including ensuring...

..that parents play an integral role in assisting their child’s learning.

...that parents are encouraged to be actively involved in their child’s education.

...that parents are full partners in their child’s education and are included, as appropriate, in decision-making and on advisory committees to assist in the education of their child.

...the carrying out of other activities, such as those described in Section 1116 of the ESSA.

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A b o u t

the Parent and Family Engagement Plan In support of strengthening student academic achievement, the Jackson County School System (JCSS) has developed this parent and family engagement plan that establishes the system's expectations and objectives for meaningful family engagement and guides the strategies and resources that strengthen school and parent partnerships in the system's Title I schools. This plan will describe JCSS’s commitment to engage families in the education of their children and to build the capacity in its Title I schools to implement family engagement strategies and activities designed to achieve the system and student academic achievement goals.

When schools, families, and communities work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school longer and enjoy school more. Title I, Part A provides for important family engagement at every level of the program, such as in the development and implementation of the system and school plan, and in carrying out the system and school improvement provisions.

Section 1116 of ESSA contains the primary Title I, Part A requirements for schools and school systems to involve parents and family members in their children's education. The JCSS will work with its Title I schools to ensure that the required school-level parent and family engagement plans meet the requirements of federal law, and each include, as a component, a school parent compact Engagement Plan 2025-26 | 3

Jointly Developed

All families are invited to attend the Annual Federal Programs Input Meeting held in the spring. This meeting is held to offer families an opportunity to provide input and share ideas on ways to improve the Parent Engagement Plan for the 2025-2026 school year. The meeting was advertised on the system website and each Title I school website.

Invitations were sent out to various stakeholders and each family engagement specialist was able to share invitations with families. By attending the Federal Programs Input Meeting, all families with students attending Title I schools, including homeless, migrant, immigrant, and families whose children are served by Title I and attending private schools, are given the opportunity to provide input and to participate in the joint development of Jackson County’s Parent Engagement Plan. During these meetings families can also review, discuss, and offer input on the Comprehensive Improvement Plan, referred to as the CLIP. Parent input from the local school Title I input meeting, the Annual Federal Programs Input Meeting and the Annual Federal Programs Survey is used to revise the system’s Parent Engagement Plan. Upon final revision, the system’s Parent Engagement Plan is incorporated in the CLIP which is submitted to the Georgia Department of Education.

Families may submit comments and feedback regarding the policy at any time by submitting written comments to the school or through the Jackson County School System website. All feedback is considered when revising the Parent Engagement Plan for the current school year. The Jackson County School System’s Parent Engagement Plan is posted on the system, and Title I school websites, reviewed during the annual input meeting held at local Title I schools, distributed to all families in Title I schools and made available at each Title I school.

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Strengthening Our Schools This year, the Federal Programs Director will provide technical assistance and support to all Title I schools to ensure family engagement requirements are being satisfied and that family engagement strategies and activities are being implemented. Title I schools will receive notifications and resources from the system and the FPD to help them improve and strengthen family engagement. In addition to frequent communication and school visits, the system and the FPD will hold regular school improvement meetings and trainings with its Title I schools' principals and school Family Engagement Specialists to review family engagement plans and activities.

Opportunities for Meaningfu Input and suggestions from parents, family members, and community partners are an essential component of development each year. All parents of students eligible to the system and school improvement plans that are receiving Title I services are invited to attend two meeting opportunities described in this section to share their ideas and suggestions to help the system, schools, and students to reach our student academic achievement goals.

Federal Programs Input Meeting~ April-May 2026 All parents are welcome to hear the latest updates from the Jackson County School System as well as review and provide input into the system parent and family engagement plan and the Comprehensive Improvement Plan for the 2025-2026 school year. Information regarding this meeting will be posted on school and system websites and social media platforms.

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Reservation of Funds The JCSS will reserve 1 percent of the total amount of Title I funds it receives in 2025-2026 to carry out the parent and family engagement requirements listed in this plan and as described in federal law. Furthermore, the JCSS will distribute 90 percent of the amount reserved to Title I schools to support their local-level family engagement programs and

“Parent involvement in education is like the frosting on a cupcake, it makes it complete and oh so sweet.”

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activities. The system will provide clear guidance and communication to assist each Title I school in developing an adequate family engagement budget that addresses their needs assessment and parent recommendations.

l Parent Consultation School Stakeholder Input Meeting~ April-May 2026 During this month, each Title I school will host a Stakeholder Input Meeting for family members to review the school compact, the school's parent and family engagement plan as well as provide input on the family engagement budget and topics for staff and parent training. Each Title I school will send out a notification to families regarding the date and time of the meeting. This is primarily completed through ParentSquare, the official communication platform of the Jackson County School System. Information about the Stakeholder Input Meeting will also be made available on the school websites and posted on social media.

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Building Capacity The Federal Programs Director will provide all Title I school administrators and school level family engagement coordinators with trainings and technical assistance throughout the school year related to the value of family and school partnerships, increasing family engagement, improving school-family communication, creating welcoming environments, how to respond to parent requests and any additional support needed for an effective family engagement program.

School level Family Engagement Coordinators will redeliver training for staff members at Title I schools to build staff capacity for partnering with families. The Federal Programs Director will conduct visits to each Title I school to review and discuss family engagement requirements and initiatives.

To ensure that information related to system, school, parent programs, and activities is available to all parents, each Title I school is required to send home and post on-line information for parents and family members in an understandable language.

Information posted on the system website will be translated to the extent practicable. The system will also utilize ParentSquare, system and school websites, social media and local newspapers to share information for parents.

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Building Capacity The JCSS will work as a system and through its Title I schools to aid parents in understanding state and system academic information connected to their student's learning and progress, as well as information regarding the Title I program. Title I schools will provide parents with opportunities to attend family engagement events and activities throughout the school year concerning Title I program requirements, Georgia Standards of Excellence, MAP, using technology for learning, and various academic content workshops that aim at providing parents with training and materials to help their children with reinforcing learning at home. Each individual Title I school will share dates and times for these family engagement nights by sending home invitations as well as posting this information on the school website, sending ParentSquare notifications, and posting announcements on social media.

The JCSS will also coordinate pages on the system and school websites that will contain resources and materials to help parents work with their children at home in the areas of literacy and math. Copies of these materials will be made available at all Title I schools for those families who may have limited internet access, including copies in Spanish. To assist parents with understanding the on-line student information system and other digital educational resources (including education about the harms of copyright piracy), Title I schools will host workshops for parents.

Dates and times for these workshops will be determined and announced by each individual school.

The Jackson County School System has also partnered with Ferst Readers, which supplies a new book and parental information monthly to children ages birth to five years old.

The Jackson County School System hosts a Volunteer Instructional Leadership Learning Academy (VILLA), comprised of parent representatives from each Title I school's Parent Teacher Organization to provide advice on all matters related to family engagement in Title I, Part A programs, along with learning multiple facets of the organization. Community leaders and business partners will be invited to serve on this council, as well.

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Building Capacity Jackson County Schools will coordinate and integrate the system's family engagement programs with the local preschool program and other federal and state funded preschool programs within the county by inviting faculty and staff from those programs to attend system parent family engagement meetings focused on family engagement activities. In the spring, the elementary schools will host Kindergarten Registration so parents may tour the schools and receive information to help prepare them and their children for kindergarten. The JCSS will also coordinate with these programs to ensure that parents are informed about available resources. .

JCSS will coordinate with EL and migrant programs to host family nights and provide supplemental learning materials in the areas of literacy, math, and science, offering families of other ethnicities an opportunity to connect to community and school resources as well as each other.

Parent workshops/training sessions will be provided to assist parents and caregivers in understanding how children think, feel, and learn. Practical and fun, hands-on information will be offered to help parents turn everyday moments into moments that help young children develop in healthy ways and begin to prepare them for school.

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& Teachers Build Partnerships Research shows that parents and teachers build partnerships that help children succeed when they:

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Engage together in meaningful conversations

Show mutual respect

Actively listen to one another

Collaborate on issues that affect student learning

Empathize with one another

Open themselves up to learning from each other

Involve students as responsible collaborators in their own learning Engagement Plan 2025-26 | 10

Each year, the JCSS will conduct an evaluation of the content and the effectiveness of this parent and family engagement plan and the family engagement activities to improve the academic quality of the Title I schools through an annual Federal Programs survey and the School Improvement Forums.

Each Title I school will send home a link to the survey, or a paper copy when applicable, for parents to provide valuable feedback regarding the parent and family engagement activities and programs.

The link to this survey will also be posted on the system and school website for parents to complete. In addition to the annual survey, each Title I school will also use the School Improvement Forum to facilitate group discussions to discuss the needs parents of children eligible to receive Title I services to design strategies for more effective family engagement.

The JCSS will use the findings from the school forums and the survey results to design strategies to improve effective family engagement, to remove possible barriers to parent participation, and to revise its parent and family engagement plans.

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In carrying out the parent and family engagement requirements established by Section 1116 of the ESSA, the system family engagement coordinator will communicate and collaborate with the Office for Student Support Services to ensure full opportunities for participation of parents with limited English proficiency, parents with disabilities, and parents of migratory children including providing information and school reports in a language parents can understand.

This system-wide parent and family engagement plan has been developed jointly and agreed upon with parents and family members of children participating in Title I, Part A programs as evidenced by the collaboration of parents, school, and system personnel at the annual Federal Programs meeting. This plan was adopted by the Jackson County School System on June 30, 2025, and will be in effect for the 2025-2026 academic school year. The school system will distribute this plan in multiple ways to all parents of participating Title I, Part A children on or before November 1, 2025.

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Parent and Family Engagement Plan